Blog
Habits (part 1 of 2)
How You do Anything is how You do Everything
1 Nov 2019
Author: Kristina Olsevska
If you visit productivity and personal development websites, at one point you’ll almost certainly notice articles listing particular habits successful people practice every day. These habits are either backed up by research or gained through personal experience. Here’s what some of these articles look like:
33 Daily Habits Highly Successful People Have (and the Rest of Us Probably Don’t)
50 Habits of Successful People
27 Daily Habits Practiced by Exceptionally Successful People
And the list of articles can go on endlessly. As for their correctness, they are not far from the truth – successful people really do think, act and see the world differently. Success requires sacrifice and if it would be easy, everyone would do it.
Some articles claim that in order to be successful you should wake up early or meditate. But what if I am the most productive late at night? What if instead of doing the lotus position I’d rather be in the woods screaming my lungs out?
BePrime thinks that instead of outright copying all the things successful people do, we need to build our own good habits that evolve from belief in willpower, self-esteem and physical & mental health.
Willpower: the most crucial of all habits.
It’s great if you have any of these qualities:
- self-control,
- self-discipline,
- personal determination,
- drive,
- discipline,
- grit,
- firmness,
- fixity,
- self-restraint,
- self-government,
- resolve,
- resilience,
- can-do spirit,
If you have one, some or most of these, you are on your way to acquire strong willpower.
According to American Psychological Association, most psychology researchers define willpower as:
- The ability to delay gratification and resist short-term temptations to meet long-term goals.
- The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse;
- The conscious, effortful regulation of the self, by the self.
Self-control refers to the capacity to alter one’s own responses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals, and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals.
Lack of willpower isn’t the only reason a person might fail to reach their goals. Roy Baumeister – psychologist and willpower researcher at Florida State University – describes three necessary components for achieving one’s objectives:
- Establishing the motivation for change and setting a clear goal.
- Monitoring the behaviour toward that goal.
- Exercising willpower. Whether your goal is to lose weight, kick a smoking habit, study more or spend less time on Facebook, willpower is a critical step to achieving that outcome.
Moreover, there have been various studies that claim higher scores on self-control (a.k.a. willpower) correlate with a higher grade point average in schools, better adjustment, less binge eating and alcohol abuse, better relationships and interpersonal skills, secure attachment, and more optimal emotional responses (Tangney, J., Baumeister, R., & Boone, A. L., 2004).
What does this mean?
In short, if you learn to master your willpower, you’ll also master your bad habits (e.g. overeating or substance abuse) and you will better adjust to a constantly changing environment (e.g. when you build your own business). But most importantly, willpower helps to build courage, improve communication skills or deal with mental disorders (e.g. anxiety). Willpower essentially shapes your self-esteem.
